Creating Web Pages

DETAILS

Create and post your very own Web site on the Internet using HTML in this extensive, hands-on, six week workshop. First, you'll learn about the capabilities of the World Wide Web and the fundamentals of web design. Then, with your instructor's patient guidance, you'll plan the content, structure and layout of your Web site, create pages full of neatly formatted text, build links between the pages and to the outside world, and add color, backgrounds, graphics, and tables. You'll also learn critical and timely information on securing the best possible location in search engine listings, and powerful no-cost or low-cost web marketing strategies.

SYLLABUS

A new session of each course opens each month, allowing you to enroll whenever your busy schedule permits!

How does it work? Once a session starts, two lessons will be released each week, for the six-week duration of your course. You will have access to all previously released lessons until the course ends.

Keep in mind that the interactive discussion area for each lesson automatically closes 2 weeks after each lesson is released, so you’re encouraged to complete each lesson within two weeks of its release.

The Final Exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the Final Exam has been released, you will have 2 weeks plus 10 days to complete the Final and finish any remaining lessons in your course. No further extensions can be provided beyond these 10 days.

Week 1

Lesson 01 - Getting Started

Wednesday

In this lesson, you'll get started by learning where the Web is and how it works. We'll cover some important concepts and terminology, and hopefully clear up some buzzwords you may have heard but not quite understood. Then we'll go hands-on and get started creating your first website.

Lesson 02 - Create Your First Web Page

Friday

Today, you'll create your first Web page. You'll learn how to add tags and content to your page, view your page in a browser, reopen it in an editor to make additions and changes, save those changes, and then view the updated page in a Web browser. These skills will apply to every Web page you ever create, and they'll get you started on creating any page you can imagine.

Here's your chance to add some visual excitement to your website! Today, we're going to learn the basics about adding pictures to your Web pages. You'll discover how to download pictures right off the Web, and you'll also learn how to prepare and use your own pictures from a digital camera.

Week 3

Lesson 05 - Creating Tables

Wednesday

Tables are a terrific way to neatly organize content into rows and columns. You've no doubt seen tables used in other websites and countless other forms of publication. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to use HTML to create tables in your own Web pages!

Lesson 06 - HTML, XHTML, and CSS

Friday

If you've been involved in Web development at all during the last 20 years, you may have heard about HTML, XHTML, HTML5, and CSS. If you're new to all of this, it's a confusing mess of alphabet soup. In this lesson, you'll learn the who, how, what, when, where, and why of these technologies—and what you should use now so your website is in sync with current specs and future trends.

Week 4

Lesson 07 - Getting Started With CSS

Wednesday

Virtually all modern websites use CSS style rules for all their website styling. In today's lesson, you'll learn what a style rule is, and you'll get some hands-on practice creating your own styles rules. You'll learn how to center and align pictures and text, and you'll discover the secrets to jazzing up your site with colors (and how to choose from the millions of color options available to you).

Lesson 08 - Creating a Page Layout

Friday

Today's lesson will introduce you to more advanced HTML and CSS topics, including how to create a page layout with a navigation bar. You'll learn how to create a page layout using div tags to put named page divisions in a Web page, and we'll discuss how to style your page divisions by adding an internal style sheet and some style rules.

Week 5

Lesson 09 - Building Your Site

Wednesday

Most websites consist of multiple pages with some common content on each page. Today's lesson will teach you to use a layout page as template so you can build multipage websites more quickly. We'll cover liquid versus fixed layouts, how design a layout, and how to easily build additional pages from your layout page. This will help you to develop more professional-looking pages using the same modern coding techniques that seasoned professionals use!

Lesson 10 - Getting Noticed

Friday

Getting a site on the Internet is one thing. Getting people to notice it is quite another. In today's lesson, you'll learn about Internet directory services, search engines, Web-crawling infobots (not as creepy as they sound), and things you can do to make your own site stand out in the crowd!

Week 6

Lesson 11 - Publish Your Website

Wednesday

In today's lesson, you'll learn how to publish your website for the whole world to see—well, at least anyone on the Internet. And best of all, you'll learn how to keep your site on the Internet, for free, forever!

Lesson 12 - Authoring Systems

Friday

In today's lesson, you'll learn about authoring systems like Dreamweaver and Expression Web, and how they can make Web development quicker and easier. You'll also learn a couple of ways to get an online presence without creating your own website!

INSTRUCTOR

With over 100 published books to his name, award-winning author Alan Simpson is widely regarded as a computer and Internet guru. His books have been published throughout the world in over a dozen languages. Alan is a seasoned veteran of the computer industry, and his books and online courses cover virtually all aspects of the computer industry, including Web development, operating systems, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, programming, networking, and security.

REVIEWS

I have learned a lot from this class, since starting with little to no experience. Thank you, Alan, so much for your delivery and expertise in presenting the materials. They were very detailed with great images. It made the class easy to follow and do the assignments.

Thank you for your teaching style. You are an excellent instructor. I thoroughly enjoyed this lesson.

Thank you so much for your patience and the excellent way you teach online. You are one of the best instructors I ever seen. You did an awesome job!

You explain everything - clear and simple. Even though what I am doing is so basic and simple, I feel so proud that I am capable of doing something I only thought computer geniuses could do. Thanks for this great course and helping me believe in myself again. I can't wait to learn more!

What is particularly exciting to me, is that as I add tag and text, it updates in real time as soon as I save the notepad file and refresh the browser! It is so handy to be able to test new concepts as we learn them - instant gratification! I have read pages on the web for years, wondering how the authors accomplished various bells and whistles. The mystery is gradually being revealed through this class. I could not be more pleased and excited!

Great course, Mr. Simpson! Many courses that claim to be introduction courses end up being anything but that. You designed this course to truly make a person who knew nothing about html understand the big picture of how websites work (on the internet) and how to work with html. I plan on taking your next course in html and hope that I can keep up there too!

Thank you so very much, Alan Simpson, for an approachable, informative, enjoyable course! I was totally new to this, and somewhat fearful, but you made it a pleasant experience, and I've learned a lot. I had put off taking a course for years, and personal circumstances almost led me to dropping this one. I'm so glad I didn't!

The best online class ever and this was my first! Alan, you are absolutely a great online instructor. For each lesson, it felt as if the teacher was standing in front of me...I humbled myself and reread, took breaks and came back to the lessons and "wammo" I could do it. I plan to take another course and hope I get you as my instructor. I am truly looking forward to publishing my own web site. Thank you so much!

This course is an extremely valuable tool in learning the basics of web pages. As an instructor you do a wonderful job in making it easy to understand and you have answered all questions in detail.

I was scared to death I couldn't follow your instructions, since I've been out of college a hundred years and we didn't even have computers then, but your instructions were so clear and concise that even I had no problem following them. This was a very positive experience for me and I would recommend this course to anyone.